BROOKFIELD --A 7-year-old boy starts fighting on the playground with another boy. Teachers rush to break it up.

Both boys are shipped to the principal's office, as the standard response; parents are called and the boys lose playground privileges for a week. The boys' animosity brews. Next time on the playground they fight again; this time worse than the first.

Brookfield school district's Director of Special Services Charles Manos thinks there is a better way, one that embraces a philosophy founded on the West Coast more than 30 years ago but just gaining traction here.

The new model is known as "positive discipline."

In this scenario, the boys might lose their playground privileges, but punishment would not be the sole ingredient in the discipline.

The boys would each be given a chance to explain why the fight erupted. They would then be given a chance to think about how best to resolve the conflict so both boys could use the playground at the same time.

"It's so logical, but it's against what we've learned,'' Manos said.

Brookfield is today one of the first school districts in western Connecticut, to begin training faculty in positive discipline.

"I'm personally excited to be part of it and see how it grows,'' LaChance said.

Last April, Positive Discipline of Western Connecticut Inc. was organized with grant money from the Brookfield Education Foundation. The organization then trained 28 parent educators in the model, which was founded in the 1980s by Jane Nelsen, an author and educator in California.

Brookfield's training started with 10 special education teachers last summer, Manos said.

The remaining 20 special education faculty and counseling staff at Whisconier Middle and Brookfield High schools are now scheduled to be trained. Over time, Manos said he hopes it will spread to all faculty.

"This teaches young people to embrace mistakes and learn from those mistakes,'' Manos said. "Suffering is good, not the suffering of abuse or neglect but learning to tolerate different emotions and embrace mistakes that build good character.''

Positive discipline, in the home or in school, is about helping children problem solve so they can fix their own problems, bolstering self-esteem and enabling them to make solid life choices, Manos said.

One issue that positive discipline promotes is encouragement over praise, as praise is more about the parents than the child, Manos said.

"We're developing a generation of approval junkies,'' Manos said.

A student earns straight A's. Rather than heaping praise and rewarding the child with a treat, Manos said the parent should ask the child how they earned those grades.

Did the child do his homework every night? Did he use study cards or work with a friend? What skills does he think contributed to his success?

"Stay way from praising the end product, but emphasize the underlying skills,'' Manos said.

Another tenet of positive discipline is self-discipline, he said.

A 10-year-old realizes after dinner one night that she left her math book in her locker and she has a test the next day, Manos said. Instead of the parent driving to find a custodian who can open the locker, Manos suggests the parent ask the daughter how she can solve the problem.

She becomes upset and leaves the room. The parent lets her. Maybe later she decides to call a friend, or she accepts she will not do well on the test, he said.

"Solving the problem is not as important as for the child to learn how to solve (her) own problem,'' Manos said.

In school settings, positive discipline does not mean there are no punishments, explained Carol Dores, president and co-founder of the local organization. "They just are not aimed at changing one behavior, but rather focused on the thinking process that precipitated the behavior.''

She told a story of a 10-year-old screaming at his father. Instead of shouting back, the father asked the boy for a hug, not once but twice.

"And the boy melted into the father's arms,'' Dores said. "That's the magic of this.''